


The First

by TheonSugden



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Blood, Gen, M/M, Murder, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:29:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3556082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheonSugden/pseuds/TheonSugden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is based on Aaron’s answer to the “three questions” - that he’s killed two humans. This is set soon after the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First

Eric was a good recruiter - he had good instincts, he knew how to calm Aaron down, especially when Aaron was close to going all Serial Mom - but he knew the main reason Aaron took him along was because he didn’t want Eric left behind in Alexandria. They saw the way Deanna’s After School Special reject of a son looked at them, the comments under his breath, the breath of his friends. They knew boredom, a constant supply of alcohol, and being the beloved son of the law in a lawless world could lead to anything. And they knew no one would ever take their side in the aftermath.

So Eric spent most of his time alone with Aaron. In the house or in the car. Eric didn’t like being patronized, or treated like a 90-year old waiting to get a birthday greeting from the weatherman, but he knew Aaron meant well, and he knew they were in more danger, both in and beyond the walls, than he felt comfortable admitting.

He just didn’t realize how much danger until the day Aaron walked back to their car, covered in blood.

If Aaron had been running, or crying the way he still cried sometimes when they saw a dog they knew they couldn’t save, Eric would have been - not comforted, but more able to connect with Aaron, to understand.

The slow walk - steps so slow Eric wanted to reach for a remote to fast forward them back to Alexandria, back to their bed - was what unsettled him.

The emptiness in Aaron’s eyes - always so alive, so vibrant - was what made him shiver.

When Aaron reached the car, he leaned against it for support, and, Eric suspected, to avoid looking him in the eye.

“Aaron…” Eric began, barely recognizing the sound of his own voice.

Aaron finally leaned down against the passenger side window, wearing the face of a scared child.

“I-I killed a man,” Aaron said, calm, flat - too calm, with edges cutting into the surface.

Eric didn’t know what to say - he knew Aaron had acted in self-defense, that he’d done nothing wrong - but his mouth was frozen, like a cartoon. 

He pulled a bag of clothes out of the backseat, nervously looking around to see if some pack of crazy snipers were waiting. When he stepped outside, he pulled out a clean pair of slacks and flannel shirt.

“Seeing you half-naked always makes everything better,” he joked, not wanting to admit that seeing Aaron covered in someone’s blood would give him nightmares, not wanting to admit to himself that all he cared about was that the blood wasn’t Aaron’s own.

Aaron began to change, fingers unsure for something he’d been doing all his life.

“I-I went up to him…like we said I’d do…he seemed fine. Friendly. You remember. We thought he was a teacher, or a doctor, or…or…”

Eric pulled his shirt off the rest of the way, offering a reassuring kiss to the back of Aaron’s neck. He wasn’t sure Aaron even noticed.

“When I turned around…it was just a  _second_  -” he forced the last word through his teeth - “He came at me with a knife. I should be dead…”

For the first time Eric noticed the tear in the shirt sleeve. 

“You don’t have to say anything else if you don’t want to,” Eric whispered into Aaron’s broad back, wrapping his arms around Aaron’s stomach from behind.

“I -” he began to unfasten his belt buckle, as if the busy work kept him sane, “I know I was supposed to just knock him out, or talk to him, reason with him, but all I saw the knife, and his hands. I grabbed it and kicked him and…I should’ve run away, but he was on me. He kept screaming at me, screaming…screaming…and then he wasn’t.”

His trousers fell to the ground with a thud from the heavy belt buckle, amplified by the eerie quiet around them.

Eric knelt down to take off Aaron’s boots, staring up at Aaron as if he were a god. A betrayed, broken god. He nuzzled his cheek against Aaron’s right thigh, then his left, leaving a gentle kiss as a memory.

“I’m so proud of you, Aaron,” he said through his tears.

Aaron fought back tears of his own.

“It’s what I had to do. I didn’t…I didn’t know it had gotten this bad. I wanted to help…I wanted to help.”

He went into a shock of some kind as Eric put him in his fresh clothes, tossing the old ones onto the ground.

Aaron looked at them, grotesque trophies that they were, and woke up again.

“They have to know. Deanna has to know.”

Eric knew from the hollow ring to his seemingly confident tones, choked through tears, that Aaron was trying to convince himself.

“She won’t let us stay there anymore, Aaron.”

Aaron took his hand, kissing it.

“I know.”

Eric put on his own reassuring face, his supportive boyfriend face.

“I mean, I’m fine…I love the house but I hate everything else. But I don’t care. Maybe it’s time for us to go anyway?”

Aaron shook his head, forcing a grin.

“What’s that song - ‘Wherever you go, I go too?’”

Eric squeezed Aaron’s hands, putting them to his mouth.

“I don’t think Sarah Brightman had the zombie apocalypse in mind, but I could probably find a good wig in a store somewhere.”

Aaron laughed that time, a laugh that served as a dam breaking. 

Eric held Aaron in his arms, keeping him close, long fingers in brown curls as he held back his own tears. This was for Aaron. If he had to break, he’d do so when they home again…wherever that would be.

Aaron finally started to breathe again, kissing Eric one more time before he walked away.

Eric sensed that what Aaron was going to say, he couldn’t say while looking at him.

“They’re idiots. I’m an idiot too, but I learned a big lesson today. They haven’t. Eric, you know it, even if I never say it - the only reason they let us do this is because they don’t care whether we come back.”

Eric did shed a few tears at those words, at the bitterness in the voice of a man who tried so hard to be optimistic, to be kind to a world that had shown him the worst from his earliest days.

“It doesn’t matter what I tell them. It doesn’t matter if I go get the…the body and show them. They won’t believe me. We’re not supposed to do things like this. We’re their…”

“Pet gays,” Eric finished for him.

Aaron hated hearing that, but Eric knew that Aaron knew it was true.

“They just don’t see. They won’t. They care more about their dinner plates. The only way - for us and for them - is not to tell them what I - “

He looked down at his hands.

“What I did today, and to find new people who can help us. Who get it.”

The resolute tone to his voice told Eric that Aaron had made his mind up. He also knew Aaron would never quite be the same again, but he’d never loved Aaron more, or been prouder of him. If he didn’t know how much Aaron hated being praised, he would have told him, over and over, for the rest of their lives together.

After he and Aaron made their way back to the car, Eric back behind the wheel, Aaron still looking down at his hands, Eric leaned over to kiss his cheek.

“What was that for?” Aaron asked, as if he hadn’t deserved it.

“It was to say thank you. For saving my life…and for saving yours.”

He squeezed Aaron’s hand one last time before he started the engine.

“Thank you.”


End file.
